The theme of Oprah Winfrey’s first Canadian broadcast was “gratitude.”

This seemed appropriate, amid a sea of floral blouses and sensible pantsuits, deep inside the bowels of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, where more than 8,500 Opraholics lavished their visiting leader with love, adoration and unrelenting gratitude.

Joined by four “master teachers” — spiritualist Deepak Chopra, preacher Bishop T.D. Jakes, author Iyanla Vanzant and life strategist Tony Robbins — Winfrey could have read aloud from the backs of cereal boxes.

The crowd would have still roared.

Lifeclass: The Tour is a traveling TV show on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, the struggling cable station Winfrey is now tasked with fixing. With previous stops in St. Louis, Mo., and New York, the goal is to create a “global classroom” in which viewers become students and Winfrey’s “life lessons” serve as inspiration between the commercial breaks.

So, starting around 9 a.m., the lectures began.

First up was Chopra, a man so utterly cosmic one wonders if he seeks spiritual guidance before buying laundry detergent. He said things like “God is the mystery of the universe” and “Your mind does not exist by itself.” There were Venn diagrams about perception and awareness. There was a reverential hush.

What there was not, unfortunately, was a clear idea of what he was talking about.

Next up: Vanzant, a dynamic public speaker, New York Times bestselling author and someone you probably don’t want to annoy in public. She spoke about “learning how to tell the truth” and encouraged everyone to “tell the truth to yourself about yourself.”

Reaction to this tautological wisdom ranged from bursts of wild applause to bursts of wild laughter to bursts of wild applause and laughter from the mostly female audience. (There were a few males scattered across the adjoined halls. Some of them were Oprah fans. Others sat in conference chairs with grimacing smiles.)

His lecture, unofficially titled “learn stuff from bad things,” ended with an extended avian metaphor about why it’s important to be more like eagles (they can make love in the air) and less like chickens (they eat their own excrement and can’t fly).

His message was a bit clearer, especially if you were a bird.

What was really clear is that Robbins, a fellow some may recall from ’80s infomercials, is like catnip to many women of a certain age. With the jaw-line of a superhero and the disarming smile of a used car salesman, he dazzled the audience with his high-octane, rapid-fire delivery and stories about personal empowerment.

“Change is automatic, progress is not,” he barked into a microphone that was clipped over his left ear. “Change your story, change your life!”

All of this was the warm-up to the actual show, which was taped for future broadcast and started with Winfrey striding onstage in a blood-orange dress while shouting some gratitude of her own: “So glad you are here with me!”

A second show, this one live, also aired Monday night.

The genius of the self-help industry is that it’s immune to empirical testing. It’s easy to get swept up in the just-change-your-life admonitions — at times, the show felt more like a raucous church sermon than a classroom lesson — while forgetting that life is infinitely more complicated than the master teachers would have you believe.

During the first show, a couple of people in the audience talked about their own personal tragedies. The teachers — especially Vanzant — were borderline glib in response. Instead of showing any real empathy, the teachers encouraged these people to just change the narrative or change the way they see themselves.

And as this happened, something else became clear: Winfrey remains in a class of her own when it comes to this type of television. The connection she instantly forged with the audience was something none of the master teachers could ever hope to achieve over a month of on-air work, let alone a quarter century at the top.

This was the biggest lesson from Lifeclass: OWN is Oprah. Oprah is OWN. If this thing is to succeed, she may need to clone herself.

Winfrey may not have all the answers. But she asks the right questions. Unlike the master teachers, she knows not everyone will find the promised land of happiness and self-actualization.

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